San Francisco isn't the only city where name restaurateurs are bailing on New Year's Eve. In New York City, where the mother of all millennial celebrations is scheduled, many top-end restaurants have announced they won't be open for business on the most profitable night of the year.

Safety of guests and staff is what's worrying Andrew Wolfe, general manager of Red Herring in San Francisco. He has hopes of filling the dining room with guests from the adjacent Griffon Hotel, but worries about The City's big party just beyond his doors.

The Embarcadero party, predicted to attract as many as 100,000 people that night, "puts every yahoo in Northern California right in front of my restaurant," he says.

"Get a bunch of drunken people out here, and you don't know what will happen."

Those concerns are shared by Maurice Rouas, co-owner of the elegant, intimate Fleur de Lys. "It's going to be a little wild down here," he predicts of his Union Square neighborhood, another area certain to be mobbed with Y2K partygoers.

Rouas also fears that creating a menu special enough to satisfy his tony, sophisticated clientele would cost so much that "customers might think they're being taken advantage of." There's also the danger that their expectations will be so high anyway - after all, it is the millennium - that no meal at any price will please them.

George Chen, who's closing his Shanghai 1930 and Long Life Noodle Co. restaurants on Steuart Street, is upset with what he considers The City's lack of consultation with area business owners about the Embarcadero bash.

"I'm miffed that we weren't brought into the decision-making process," he says. "They (city government) didn't consider when they were planning this that they'd be affecting the economies of a lot of restaurants. We basically can't do business."

Shutting his elegant Shanghai 1930 restaurant for New Year's Eve will cost him a private party that had booked the restaurant for the evening - 50 people at $1,000 a head - he says.

Although The City expects to maintain a strong police presence at both Embarcadero and Union Square party sites - 150 uniformed officers at the former, up to 350 at the latter - Chen says at a recent meeting between Embarcadero business people and city officials, he was told, "Hope for a rainy day."

Another problem for downtown restaurants on New Year's Eve is a lack of valet parking, due to either street closures or the inability of valet parking companies to get the necessary insurance.

San Francisco's Certified Parking Attendants, which handles valet parking chores for several local eateries, must abandon some of its clients on New Year's Eve, said owner Patrick Aughney. Its insurance policy won't cover damage to customers' vehicles caused by others - for example, drunken drivers, out-of-control revelers and accidents caused by Y2K-related failures of traffic signals and the like.

The firm will service restaurants in less congested areas of The City - Gordon's House of Fine Eats in the Potrero District, for one. But other company clients like Farallon near Union Square and Red Herring at the Embarcadero are out of luck, Aughney says.

Those who get reservations at one of the many fine dining establishments still planning to be open New Year's Eve should bring plenty of money.

"The price of food is skyrocketing," says Lori Theis, manager of Farallon, Pat Kuleto's splendidly outrageous underwater fantasy land restaurant on Post Street. The cost of luxury items like caviar and foie gras is way up, and availability is limited, she says.

What really hits an upscale, seafood restaurant like Farallon is the lobster situation. With visions of big profits, lobster fishermen have been hauling in the delectable crustaceans with a frenzy and freezing them to sell to desperate restaurateurs as the days until The Big Bash dwindle down.

Theis says it's a challenging time for Farallon's Mark Franz, who must work around profiteering and shortages to craft a menu that will amaze and delight the restaurant's customers, who will pay a minimum of $250 each for the experience.

High food prices and sharply curtailed availability were factors in Tracy Des Jardins' decision to close her stylish Civic Center area restaurant, Jardini*re.

"There are a lot of unpredictable factors," she says.

"I think a lot of people are staying open with the intention of charging higher prices, and I don't feel comfortable with that. I also don't think I can make the evening happen for people with so many expectations, make their experience what they want it to be."

Besides, she says, "most people in the restaurant business have worked New Year's Eve as long as they've been in it. I know the staff doesn't want to be here; they want to be home with their loved ones. That weighed heavily in my decision."

Of course, many restaurants will be open.

At Kokkari, the multimillion-dollar Greek restaurant on Jackson Street, a lavish buffet is planned, complete with the requisite luxuries of caviar and crab, plus spit-roasted lamb, live music and dancing.

Ed and Mary Etta Moose's eponymously named North Beach restaurant will feature two seatings (five and six courses, respectively), with chef Brian Whitmer turning out dishes like seared foie gras with roasted mango and ginger essences and smoked filet of beef with wild mushroom spring roll, truffled whipped potatoes and baby spinach.

Over on Hayes Street, at Belle Epoque-style Absinthe, the menu includes Peking duck breast with wild mushrooms in Madeira sauce and Mediterranean seafood stew with langoustines, Dungeness crab, mussels and brandade toast points.

George Morrone's Fifth Floor in the new Palomar Hotel at Fourth and Market streets has a typically opulent meal planned. Think two of everything, beginning with a pair of caviars (Russian and Iranian) and continuing with a duet of foie gras (French and domestic), then on to crustaceans, beef, cheese and chocolate. Wines (two), too. Diners will be seeing double before the night is out.

For something completely different, check out the scene at the Mission District's tr*s chic Foreign Cinema, where late-night party plans include DJ Pink Frankenstein emceeing the entertainment under a 60-foot awning in the restaurant's spacious outdoor patio.

Or eschew the bright lights and loud noises of most New Year's celebrations and chew on dishes like bruschetta with smoked eggplant "caviar" or wild mushroom-black rice risotto with shaved white truffle at the appropriately named McAllister Street vegetarian restaurant, Millennium. A tarot card reader will roam the dining room just in case you want to find out what the real millennium holds.

Or perhaps after contemplating the expected Sturm und Drang, the wildness and weirdness, the inevitable overindulgence and resulting wall-eyed hangover, perhaps you'll want to follow the example of Fleur de Lys' Rouas.

"This will be my first New Year's Eve off in 36 years. I'll be in bed by 9 o'clock with a salami sandwich and a glass of cheap wine," he says.&lt;